Fear of Getting Burned (Eternal Flame Book 1)

by Peter Styles

  “Please,” she said, waving at the couch, “sit, sit. Would you like anything to drink?”

  “No, thank you—“ I got cut off by a crash and wild barking.

  The woman threw her hands up. “GODDAMMIT!” she screamed, storming off to the kitchen. We could still hear her shouting—“You little assholes! I swear to God, I should have gotten every last one of you euthanized! I should never have gotten a dog in the first place! I’m going to fucking divorce Phil, that fucking moron!”

  Diaz looked at me, eyes wide. “Dude, we have got to get the hell out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?!” He gestured towards the kitchen. “This woman is a lunatic!”

  “So what?” I whispered. “We’re just here to get the dog and get out.”

  “But what if she, like, rubbed off on them? What if they have her bad behavior?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What, do you think they have her genes or something? They’re her dogs, Diaz, not her kids.” I glanced towards the kitchen door. “And honestly, it sort of seems like we can’t blame her.”

  “I don’t know. That couple in 101 Dalmatians handled it okay.”

  “That was a Disney movie, and those characters had to have something wrong with them to want that many puppies,” I murmured. “If those were real people, they would be on a very special episode of Hoarders. No one wants one hundred and one dogs.”

  “I guess not. Still, I’m getting… vibes.”

  I groaned. “Oh, not this shit.”

  “I’m not kidding!”

  “I know you’re not, Diaz. That’s the worst part.”

  He glared, but he knew perfectly well that he wasn’t going to convince me of anything. We’d had this conversation about twenty times. Diaz’s grandmother had been what he described as some kind of powerful psychic, and he believed that he’d picked up on her “gifts.” He always said that he was “sensing” things or picking up “vibes.” I tried to tell him that everyone has that, and it’s called intuition, but he didn’t seem interested in listening to that. Instead, every time he got a bad feeling, he decided to reference his mumbo jumbo crap.

  At the same time, I didn’t really blame him. Seeing how off the rails this lady was concerned me a little, and not just because I didn’t want to find out I’d accidentally stolen one of her kids’ precious puppies.

  The woman came back looking much calmer; apparently, whatever had happened in the kitchen hadn’t been as bad as she had thought it would be, because she was smiling and leading a bouncy dog into the room on a leash.

  I had to stop myself from sputtering out an indignant snap. “Sorry,” I said, “but I thought we were picking up a puppy.”

  “You are,” the woman said. She stroked the dog’s head. “She’s nine months old. Still a puppy, technically.”

  “But she’s so… big.”

  The woman laughed. “Well, Dalmatians are a big breed.”

  I sighed and looked the dog over.

  The puppy was pretty big, about twice as big as the picture led me to believe. Its tail, ears, and nose were all solid black, and random spots dotted the rest of its body. While I surveyed it, it wagged its tail hard, letting it thump against the woman’s leg, and it stared at me with a big, open-mouth doggy grin.

  Part of me thought about calling the deal off—after all, I’d been expecting something smaller, younger, and a little less capable of causing damage—but the dog blinked up at me with such joy and wonder that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  I sighed. “So that’s fifty bucks, then?”

  The woman nodded. She was beaming when I gave her the stack of bills. She was nice enough to provide us with a water and food bowl, a couple toys, and a bag of large-breed dog food. Even so, I felt a little bit lied to.

  We drove back to the fire house in near silence until Diaz said, “So that was a terrible idea.”

  I rolled my eyes. “No, it wasn’t.” I glanced in the backseat where the puppy was fighting valiantly with a seatbelt. I couldn’t help but smile, even as the damage was being done to my car. I finally had the dog I’d always wanted. “Right, Pongo?”

  “Pongo? Really?”

  I shrugged. “Why not?”

  “I just figured you’d want to get some input from the other guys in the house,” Diaz suggested. “Especially since it’s not really your dog.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled, “Sure. I’ll think about it.”

  But that was the farthest thing from my mind.

  In that moment, I wasn’t a firefighter who needed to go back to the fire house and deal with swarms of guys who both wanted to pet and play with the dog and remove themselves from all responsibility. Instead, I was a boy with his dog, ready to take on the rest of the world with my faithful friend by my side. I was the kid I’d seen at school and wanted to be. I wasn’t the poor kid, or the guy with the crappy apartment, or the one who had been single for so long he forgot what a kiss felt like. I was a warrior with a trusty companion.

  And I was happy.

  Chapter Three

  Everyone says that all good things must come to an end. I always thought that was sort of bullshit, or at least, I’d hoped it was. If everything good came to an end, what was the point of starting it? When I met Pongo, I believed it even less. He was fun to play with, and I got into a ton of battles of tug of war and little races where I chased him down. And he was pretty comforting to have around, especially at night. He was my dog, and that could never go wrong.

  Until, of course, it did.

  I thought I just had to give him time to settle into his new environment, but it wasn’t long until that time clearly presented itself as “forever.” He was loud, constantly barking and howling at absolutely nothing. He didn’t know how to play fetch or shake or do any of the fun tricks that so many other dog owners took so much pride in. Hell, he barely knew where to go to the bathroom, something I discovered when I woke up to a puddle of his pee on my bed.

  “Well, yeah, dude,” Diaz said when I complained. “He’s a puppy.”

  “A dumb puppy.”

  Diaz shrugged. “Maybe. But what’d you expect? He’s never been trained.”

  I glared. “So what do I do?”

  My friend just grinned. “You train him, you idiot.”

  This turned out to be easier said than done.

  I bought books. I went to the library. I looked at every website I could find. And still, I couldn’t find anything helpful. Negative reinforcement only made him spitefully pee on all of my gear. Positive reinforcement didn’t do anything except teach him where the treats were so he could rip into the bag. Only a week and a half into having the dog around, and I was already considering bringing him back to the original owner. If I didn’t think that poor woman would have killed me for doing it, I probably would have.

  Diaz—as I’d anticipated—was no help whatsoever. “You need to establish the alpha male,” he said, watching me dispassionately as I attempted to wrestle one of my shoes out of the so-called “puppy’s” mouth. The dog let out a little growl, but his tail was whipping back and forth. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  “And how the fuck am I supposed to do that?” I snapped. I started jiggling the shoe around so hard the puppy was wiggling back and forth with it, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “You have to be in charge,” Diaz said unhelpfully. “Show him who’s boss. I think you’re supposed to look him in the eye to intimidate him.”

  “I thought I heard you’re not supposed to do that,” I replied.

  Diaz thought for a second. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t really remember. I’ve never had a dog before, remember?”

  “Even if I didn’t remember that, you’ve made it painfully obvious.” I fell back onto my bunk with a grunt. The puppy let out a satisfied little snuffle and collapsed to the floor, gnawing at the shoe.

  “Maybe you should pee on something he’s peed on. Like, reclaim it.”

  “He’s peed on everyth
ing,” I complained. “What am I supposed to do? Spray down the entire fire house?”

  “Then pee on him. I don’t know, man. You’re the one who read all the articles and shit.”

  “Yeah, well, the articles didn’t help.” I glared at the little dog. “They all talked about training and rewarding good behavior and spray bottles and treats and all the other crap I’ve already tried, but he’s still not budging. And if we bring him back to that lady, she’ll kill him and us.”

  “I like how you say ‘us’ like I had anything to do with it,” Diaz said sarcastically. “Did I say I wanted a dog? Hell no. You just decided one day that it’d be a super swell idea to get one. You’re on your own here.”

  “Really? You’re not going to help me at all?”

  He shrugged. “You know what they say about digging your own grave. And you’re past six feet under, my friend.”

  I stared at the puppy, who was rolling around on his back and scrabbling at the shoe with his teeth and paws. It would have been cute if it wasn’t my stuff he was destroying. “This was such a mistake,” I groaned. “Chief is going to kill me.”

  “Probably.”

  I shot Diaz a scowl. “You could try to help, you know. Or at least pretend that you would.”

  “I’ll help by making sure your legacy lives on after the Chief murders you in your bed.”

  “Wow. Thanks. You’re such a pal.”

  “I know. You’re really lucky to have me.”

  Reggie and our other bunkmate, Terry, joined us. Terry was a lot like Reggie—he was almost as annoying, but what he lacked in his ability to irritate, he more than made up for with his stupidity. He laughed when he saw the dog chewing on my shoe. “Nice training, bro,” he told me. “You teach him to chew your shit on purpose?”

  “Oh, shut up,” I snapped.

  A whistle blew, and we all let out a collective groan. That meant cleaning time.

  We had to go down to the garage to inspect and clean the trucks just about every day, as well as looking over all our equipment to make sure that nothing was damaged, unusable, or just dirty. All of us hated doing it, and I was no exception. When we became firefighters, we’d all just assumed that we would spend all of our time riding around on the big red truck, saving people and getting cats out of trees and generally being the heroes we had wanted to be since we were children, but it turned out that we had to do all of the boring crap, too.

  We all made our way downstairs to the garage. Pongo followed happily on my heels, my shoe still in his mouth. He was no longer chewing, and instead looked proud of himself, as if he was fetching it for me. It would have been cute if I hadn’t been putting up with the same exact thing for the past several days.

  My group played a round of rock paper scissors to see who would have to do what. Diaz and I won and were allowed to clean the truck, while Terry and Reggie begrudgingly started sorting through the gear, looking for holes, tears, or general wear and tear. “Hey, man,” Diaz called down to them, “you might want to check Terry’s gear for pubes and skid marks. I hear he goes commando to every call.”

  “Fuck off,” Terry called back, looking actually hurt by the juvenile insult. I snorted and shook my head. Terry was the definition of a meathead, and nothing could get him riled up quite like a fifth-grade level insult.

  Diaz and I grabbed sponges and started soaping up the truck. It wasn’t long before I was both soaking wet and outrageously warm. The garage was always fairly hot, and it didn’t help when I was getting covered in suds and water. It felt like walking through a desert with a hot towel wrapped around me.

  I slammed the garage door open and was half way through stripping off my tight black shirt when I realized there was someone standing right in front of me.

  I always knew I had a type. A lot of guys like to say that they don’t, and that they just happen to fall for whoever they find interesting or funny or whatever happens to move in their general direction, but I’d never bothered with that lie. And the guy standing uncertainly just in front of where the garage door had been was my type exactly.

  His black curls were loose enough to frame his face nicely instead of flying all over the place, and there was a faint olive cast to his skin. His bespectacled eyes were a piercing, intense brown framed by long, perfectly curled, and full lashes. He was all right angles and wire, with lean muscles just visible under his T-shirt, and his style screamed “cool art professor at a liberal college.” I was thrilled when I saw his gaze drop briefly to the strip of stomach I was displaying, as I knew that the hard V of my muscles and my abs were defined and glistening with work and sweat.

  “Hey.” I finished pulling my shirt off. I tried to see if his eyes went anywhere else but, to my disappointment, they flashed back to my face without even seeming phased. “Sorry about all the clutter and everything, we were just—“

  He held up a hand to stop me. My voice broke off in surprise more than anything else. “I appreciate the apology, but it’s hardly necessary.” His voice was soft and low, but commanding, and I had the feeling he’d never had to tell anyone the same thing twice. There was a slight accent that I couldn’t quite place. I knew it was European, but whatever it was, he hid it well. “I actually came to speak to someone about a fire that happened on Darby street a couple weeks ago.”

  “The Molotov cocktail fire.” Diaz jumped down from the truck beside me, and I noticed he was flexing. He too removed his shirt, and I had to restrain myself from shoving him out of the way. The horny bisexual may be an ugly and inaccurate stereotype, but it unfortunately fit Diaz to a T. “Sure, we remember. We were there that night.”

  The man tilted his head to the side, regarding us dispassionately. I could tell there was something happening behind his eyes, but as for what, it was a complete mystery. That somehow managed to make him even sexier; I’d always enjoyed an aloof air of intrigue. “Ah. Well, then, I must thank you.” He stuck out a hand. “That was my home that burned down. Without your help, I doubt I or anything else inside would have made it out safely.”

  I took his hand and shook it. It felt like a lance of electricity shot up my forearm. I tried to see if he’d felt the same thing, but his expression remained politely inscrutable. After the man shook Diaz’s hand too, I blurted, “You look good.”

  The man raised a perfectly-shaped eyebrow. Even though it looked like it was crafted with a stencil, I could tell it was completely natural; the guy looked perfect without expending any effort whatsoever. “Pardon?” he asked.

  “I mean, you look healthy,” I said. I could feel my face burning, and I could only hope that any redness there could be attributed to the midafternoon sunlight. “It doesn’t seem like you were hurt in the fire, which is a good thing. A lot of people don’t make it out at all, much less completely unscathed.”

  Finally, the guy cracked a small smile. “This is true,” he agreed. “And I have you to thank for the help. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think that would have happened.” His smile, meager as it was, vanished. “I’m terribly sorry that I don’t have anything to give you as thanks. If I had known that all of you would be here, I would have done more to make sure that you knew how much I appreciate your help.”

  Diaz and I exchanged surprised glances. People came to thank us every so often, but usually they were so caught up in repairing the wreckage of their lives that we never heard from them again. I was so flustered by the gratitude that I struggled to find something to say. “It’s not a problem,” I finally managed. “That’s our jobs. We’re just happy that we managed to do them as well as we could to help you.”

  “I can see that. You seem like very humble men. It’s a nice change,” the man remarked. “Too many people these days go out of their way to call themselves heroes, but the true ones are those who fight evil and destruction in silence. It’s very impressive.”

  “Don’t be fooled,” I said, and I nudged Diaz with my elbow. “This one thinks he’s God’s gift to the universe.”


  “I said my muscles were God’s gift,” Diaz sniffed. “I happen to be extremely humble about everything else, thanks.” He shifted his footing and crossed his arms, trying to look irritated, but I knew he was doing it just so he could flex. I almost rolled my eyes. Diaz was always talking about how I needed to get laid, but being friends with him didn’t exactly help. Whenever I went to talk to a guy, they were usually so distracted by the caramel Adonis in front of them that they didn’t give me the time of day.

  I looked surreptitiously to see if the man had noticed. He definitely gave Diaz a once-over, but he still looked unimpressed, and it was hard for me not to cheer over that. For once, I hadn’t lost the race before the gun even went off.

  “I see that,” the man deadpanned, and I liked him even more. “I’m sorry to cut the conversation short, but my business isn’t with you. The lead investigator wanted to ask me a few questions.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said, cutting in before Diaz could say anything. “Just take those stairs right there. They’ll lead to the Chief’s office, and he can call in anyone you need to speak to.”

  “Thank you. And thanks again for your help a couple weeks ago.” He gave another tiny, stoic smile, and then he was gone, striding past us with purpose, not even stopping to look at Reggie and Terry as they struggled through piles of gear.

  “That guy’s something, huh?” Diaz asked after he was confident the man was out of earshot.

  I picked up one of the rags we were cleaning the truck with, twirled it, and snapped Diaz’s annoyingly sculpted six pack with it. He yelped and clutched at his stomach in horror. “What the fuck, dude?! I was making an observation!”

  “No, you were making a spectacle,” I told him sourly. “Of yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on. A hot guy comes in here and all of a sudden you decide to take a break and strip in front of him? And that flexing? I was half-expecting you to pull off a pair of tear away pants and tell him to shove dollars down your boxers.”